Saturday, October 22, 2011

RESTore

I learned to rest through Yoga. Before that it was just Sleep and Awake and the hazy struggle in between. Discovering REST meant knowing gravity's dense welcoming cradle. It meant accepting the fall toward safe nothingness, through and below floating chaotic dreamscapes. It meant feeling the heavy physicality of tiredness and welcoming the lightness of release. And it meant becoming part of the Earth. Corpse Pose, Yoga calls this. Was I incredulous when I first heard this notion. How dare! ...... How dare yoga be so blunt! .... frightening? ..... honest? ..... clear? After intensive yoga studies, I entered a one-on-one session with my teachers to reflect, have closure, and "graduate." Invited to share with them how deep study of yoga had affected me, I shared one simple thing. It "rose to the top of my mind's water" as the one essential truth that had shifted for me. I was more accepting and less fearful of death. Not actually fearless, but profoundly less fearful than I had been before. I had been practicing the art of letting go in corspe pose, and discovered a new world that brought ease gently into my reach. It was the world of REST.